'Enjoy your four days leave,' he said, reaching for his cap. He added softly, 'I don't want to push you, Farge. But I've chosen you because I believe you're the best man for the job.' Then he called across to his staff:
'Help Lieutenant-Commander Farge all you can, gentleman. He'll be wanting to look at the charts before he leaves. Steve, look after him. will you?'
A grey-faced commander detached himself from the group: 'Certainly, sir. He's arrived at the right moment.'
Rackham raised his eyebrows.
'Washington is on the line, sir. They want to know if the First Sea Lord's special envoy has been fully briefed for the meeting on the twenty-eighth?'
Chapter 3
'I'll take Meg for a walk, I think,' Julian Farge said, after an uneasy hour at the dinner-table. 'We'll go up on the moor.'
'Sorry about my tales of woe,' his father said, 'but it's good to talk with someone now Barbie's gone. Don't keep Meg out too late.'
What could have been a serene happy retreat, Newdyke, was becoming a nagging duty. As his father had reiterated over the port, there was considerable animosity against him. Lord Farge was very much a political peer. He had not exactly bought his place in the House of Lords but, as a result of vast profits from the manufacture of plastics, his largesse had certainly been well placed.
It was cold when Farge reached the crest of the hill where the Roman remains still showed. The old bitch trailed behind him for the last half-mile, her tongue lolling from her mouth, her eyes reproachful. An old staghound which the kennels had spared for the Farges, Meg had been Julian's since moving to Newdyke. To his right the dark shoulder of Dunkery swept upwards, deep purple on the skyline, fiery sepia where the last light fell. Merging into the invisible combes and distant woods, the great sweep of the beacon hill was silhouetted against the darkening sky, not stark and cruel but with a warm welcome Farge always sensed when he came to it. Exmoor was as friendly as Dartmoor was mysterious and aloof.
Farge lay down, his back against one of the rocks on the ancient Exmoor barrow. Meg crept into the crook of his arm, her muzzle nuzzling against his thigh. Her grizzled face looked up at him, her brown eyes telling him that she was glad to have him home. She grunted with contentment as he fondled her soft muzzle; above him a gull mewed in the darkness as it flapped in from the sea. There would be wind tomorrow.
And tomorrow he must make his phone call to FOSM. Now, up here, he must make the decision. It was considerate of Rackham to allow him the choice: it would have been so easy to have assumed that his cos would automatically accept orders for even the most hazardous of patrols. This must be a very special job, for histrionics were anathema to Rackham.
Farge had left Northwood mentally and physically exhausted; his emphatic request to have Woolf-Gault replaced had left the Staff Captain unmoved. He slept for most of the journey to Taunton. After a good dinner and listening to his father's problems, he felt refreshed, better able to concentrate. He had never really known his father; his twin sister, Barbie, had been much closer, probably because she was a substitute from the earliest days for the mother whom they had never known. Barbie, born twenty minutes before Julian, had always been the bossy one. Even during those years of their childhood when a mysterious 'aunt' had been supervising the household, Barbie had been formidable. Father had not overcome his loneliness since Barbie left Newdyke on her marriage eighteen months ago. Father, a brilliant man in the industrial world, had proved incredibly insensitive among the community on Exmoor, whence he had only moved after receiving his peerage. Lord Farge was an introspective, shut-in person — and Julian realized that in some ways he must have inherited a few of his traits. This latest worry of his father's was a case in point….
Yesterday, Lord Farge had run over and killed their neighbour's working dog, a black-and-white border collie. Spinneycombe was farmed by a Mrs Prynne who Lord Farge had convinced himself was behind the local animosity towards him. He was an ardent follower of the stag-hunt, but Mrs Prynne detested it and all it stood for, though she supported the foxhounds. A feud had developed when, in retaliation for some suspected slight, Lord Farge had forbidden the fox-hunt to cross his estate. There was no answer from the farmhouse when Lord Farge rang to tell Mrs Prynne about the dog, and so Julian had been persuaded by his father to go over to Spinneycombe early tomorrow with the dead dog and to tender Lord Farge's apologies.
A fine start to a leave… but there was nothing he would enjoy more than to get stuck in down here, if his father would allow him. Lord Farge was sixty-six but ageing rapidly and might be relieved to hand over Newdyke to his son: he might even sell up and return to his beloved Yorkshire. Farge pitched a stone at a stump sticking up from the turf. The light was almost gone. He pulled his jacket closer about him: there was a touch of northerly in the wind. He had not worried his father with his own dilemma — the old man bore enough cares without having to worry over the fate of his son. Though the family heritage had rarely been mentioned, it was obvious that Lord Farge of Newdyke was proud of his property, of the niche he was trying to carve out for himself in this part of the world.
Farge swore to himself and the old dog looked up, eager to be off. Lieutenant-Commander Julian Farge, commanding officer of HM Submarine Orcus… if he and his crew failed to return, would the incident be a shattering loss to mankind? Twelve seconds of media time: 'The Ministry of Defence regrets to announce that HM Submarine Orcus has failed to return from patrol. Next of kin have been informed.' And for how long would they be remembered? If there was to be an afterwards, how soon would they be forgotten? Perhaps a plaque in the Dolphin chapel?
The distant call of a curlew down on the marshy ground drifted upwards, plaintive, inexpressibly sad… up here in the gathering dusk, he wished with all his being that he could believe in something. He was facing the moral crisis of his life: within a few days he would, as FOSM said, probably be dead. As captain of Orcus he was entrusted with leading his men. But here he was on Exmoor, still wrestling with fundamentals.
The clouds were lowering over Dunkery, scudding black across the rising half-moon. A fitful light shone through the scurrying clouds. From time to time he could make out the sea to the northward, a line of silver, glistening, shivering and then merging with the night. Death. Was it the end of everything? That final patrol, which submariners knew they all had to face, was never discussed: the implosion, the split-second of recognition, the deluge — and when that was over, was life snuffed out, just like that — kaput? Certainly most of his ship's company and at least two of his officers were convinced that there was a hereafter, but he had always declined to lead any prayer service.
He wished he could have more time — but the condemned' man always asked for that, didn't he, when facing the firing squad? His ship's company needed more training, the first lieutenant in particular. Tim Prout could only become reliable with time- but thank God for Bowles, the best submarine Cox'n with whom Farge had ever been shipmates. Bowles must be a Christian, though he never referred to his belief. He always accepted without rancour whatever cock-up occurred, and the hands never took liberties with him. Farge shivered. The old dog was creeping behind him for shelter, the wind fluffing up the hairs of her coat.
Farge climbed to his feet and faced the dark line of the distant coast. In his imagination he could hear the breakers, hurling themselves upon Foreland Point, curling across the out-lying rocks and spurting, like geysers, into the sky. 'Heel, Meg!' he called. She was already starting down the track for home. Farge turned his back on Dunkery and began the trek back to Newdyke House.